1. Field Of The Invention
The apparatus of the present invention relates to containers. More particularly, the present invention relates to a container which serves as a cooler, such as an ice chest, which is portable in nature, and has the ability to collapse into an easily transportable unit, and to be reconfigured into an ice chest with insulated walls or a storage container, as the case may be.
2. General Background
Ice chests have been found to be very useful containers for consumers to transport goods which need to be refrigerated during transport. In most cases, the ice chest is carried manually by individuals, and would enable easy access into the ice chest for the goods stored therein. One shortcoming of ice chests has been the fact that ice chests, because of their nature, usually take up valuable storage room when not in use or when empty, or take up valuable transport space within a car, truck or the like. It would therefore be useful to have an ice chest which could be stored or transported, when empty, in a compact configuration, and yet could be easily assembled into a container which would be insulated and impermeable to fluids, so that it could be utilized as an ice chest at its point of origin.
In pursuing this idea, a patentability search was conducted in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the following patents were noted as a result of that search, and are included herein in the prior art statement:
U.S. Pat. No. 66,666--DEVICE FOR PRESERVING AND TRANSPORTING PERISHABLE ARTICLES;
U.S. Pat. No. 696,754--FOLDING ICE BOX;
U.S. Pat. No. 1,267,840--KNOCKDOWN ISOTHERMAL SHIPPING BOX;
U.S. Pat. No. 2,720,998--COLLAPSIBLE CONTAINER;
U.S. Pat. No. 3,658,035--COLLAPSIBLE AQUARIUM;
U.S. Pat. No. 3,828,966--COLLAPSIBLE BAKING PAN;
U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,558--RECEPTACLE FOR MOUNTING IN A FREEZER FOR ASSISTING IN THE DEFROSTING THEREOF.